At the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan, NASA astronaut Christina Koch works inside the Soyuz MS-12 spacecraft Feb. 27 during pre-launch training.
Christina Koch takes a moment to read a handwritten card from her husband that she received in a cargo resupply mission. Cargo resupply missions oftentimes contain special deliveries for crew aboard the space station from family and friends from the Earth down below.
Now in her final days on the International Space Station, NASA astronaut Christina Koch will return home Feb. 6 after 328 continuous days in space, the longest single spaceflight by a female astronaut.
For American astronauts, only former astronaut Scott Kelly completed a longer spaceflight of 340 days.
During her time in space, Koch shattered records as part of three expeditions and the first all-woman spacewalk (and the second, and the third), and facilitated a myriad of research studies. But she recalls special moments in between, made memorable because of the people who helped make them possible and her unique perspective “floating” in orbit 250 miles above her home planet. Before returning to Earth, Koch shared some of her most memorable moments living and working on the station.
On March 14, 2019, Koch reached the space station after a six-hour journey on the Soyuz spacecraft alongside NASA astronaut Nick Hague and Roscosmos cosmonaut Aleksey Ovchinin to commence Expedition 59. As the first person through the hatch upon arrival, she remembers seeing both colleagues and friends and experiencing the “actual” interior of the space station for the first time. “That was the day that I have seared in my memory,” she says. “Visions from when I first arrived here … I’m very privileged to have that as one of my favorite memories.”
Asked what made her laugh the hardest while on the space station, Koch explains it happened during karaoke while singing to a crew favorite, “Wind of Change.” During the song, the internet connection dropped (during a normal antenna adjustment) ending the music video for about 10 minutes. The crew continued a casual conversation while waiting, but the moment the internet reconnected, and the music continued, the crew started singing right where they left off as if they hadn't been interrupted. “That was a really, really great moment.”
Although Koch enjoyed the meals that the crew can share together as a team, she says she particularly enjoyed pizza nights -- compliments of the care packages sent from those on the ground that included non-perishable pizza kits. “We’re able to make pizzas in our kind of makeshift space oven using tin foil and a little bit of creativity,” she says confessing that it is a welcome change to the normal dinnertime routine.
Koch, who grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina, recalls taking in the views of the state she calls home. “One really striking moment was the first time I saw my hometown in the area where I grew up, which is coastal North Carolina.” Other favorite views of Earth from the station include the auroras, both the northern and southern lights, because she spent many years working in both the Antarctic and Arctic where she viewed the auroras from the ground below.
Recounting her first spacewalk on March 29, 2019, during Expedition 59, Koch describes seeing Earth gliding by behind her spacewalking partner, Nick Hague, and recognizing that Earth was clearer than she had ever seen it in any window on the space station. “At that moment, I just felt like everything I had ever worked for, everything I had ever loved, everything I had ever wanted to contribute to my entire life was just culminating in that moment.” Koch also shares how unique her series of spacewalks were with NASA astronaut Drew Morgan and how much of an honor it was to walk out into space with NASA astronaut Jessica Meir as part of the first all-woman spacewalk in history on Oct. 18, 2019. “We caught each other’s eye and we knew that we were really honored with this opportunity to inspire so many, and just hearing our voices talk to Mission Control, knowing two female voices had never been on the loops, solving those problems together outside – it was a really special feeling.”
Koch, after spending some time on the space station, says she may have “actually forgotten that [she] was floating.” She describes how surprising it was to realize the capacity of the human mind to normalize the act of floating, and how working upside down is just as natural as working right-side up. “It’s been a huge surprise to see that life up here can actually become normal because of what our bodies can adapt to.”
Cargo resupply missions often bring the astronauts special treats. Koch talks about the most memorable items she received, handwritten letters from her husband. She points out that even though there is a delay between when the letter was written and when it arrived on the space station, “the letters are not necessarily relevant to the moment, but the fact that they can express things and that it’s something that someone you love on Earth actually was holding in their hands is really special.”
Last Updated: Jan. 31, 2020
Editor: Mark Garcia
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